Awake, His Soul
by Jasper.Fangirl
Summary: Esme is experiencing pain because her newest son has trouble coming to her for advice.
1. Chapter 1

**Awake, His Soul**

**Chapter I: Reflections on a Stoic Child**

***Hello, my lovelies! I'm baaack! This story is a little different from my typical work, so I hope you enjoy it.***

I sat on the porch of my family's new house and took a moment to enjoy the sights and smells around me. It was a cool spring morning, just past the frosty cold of winter. It was the time of year when everything seemed to come to life again.

I loved this time of year. It's almost as if everything becomes weary of hibernation and breaks out of its shell to display its vivaciousness.

I sighed wistfully, wishing that philosophy applied to everyone and everything. I knew that everyone had their moments of insecurity, and everyone had their moments when they wished to hide from the world. Sadly, there are some people for whom hiding is a lifestyle. No, not a lifestyle, a habit. A way of coping with the cruelty of life.

I knew that he was introverted by nature, and that he didn't know how to express himself. However, every time I saw him clench his fists or wince when the painful memories came flooding back, I wanted to help. As cruel as it sounded, I sometimes hoped that the pain would be enough to force him from his stone fortress and seek comfort in me. I'm his mother, after all; that's my job.

That's all I wanted to be. His mother. But, he wasn't looking for someone to take care of him. He hated it when people tried to do that. He was too stoic. He felt that his problems were his alone, and that he didn't need anyone to shepherd him. He always had his under-the-radar way of dealing with things that never really led to a clear resolution.

I supposed it all started in his human life. As a farmboy, he worked hard, and did so without complaint. In the Army, he had to shift his focus to keeping his men alive, fighting and planning battles, and protecting the country he served. He said that he had nothing to complain about because it would make him sound ungrateful for the things he did have, but I don't think that's completely true. I just think that, from such a young age, the poor dear was forced to put himself on the back burner. He became so selfless that he became unable to voice his own feelings for the fear of hurting us.

I told him time and time again that that's what I'm here for.

Mothers are supposed to protect their children from harm. They are supposed to listen to their children pour out their problems, and be there to dry their childrens' tears.

And he never let me. He never once told me that he needed to lend him an ear. I never had the opportunity to wrap my arms around him and hold him as he cried.

That's another thing. I knew he cried. He had to, for I know no one who could bear the things he'd gone through without letting off some steam. He never got angry or destroyed things, so tears had to be his method of catharsis. It just hurt me that he did not let me see it happen. It tore me apart that my son, my beautiful boy, was suffering in silence when I would gladly do anything in the world to ensure his happiness.

It was just the simple fact that his past would not let him trust. He trusted that I would not hurt him, but he could not allow himself to be vulnerable. He acted like the fact that he had weakness was classified information that could be used against him.

He told us not to take it personally when he refused our help, but we did. He felt that, and he felt guilty, but that was not enough to change his behavior. We knew it wasn't really his fault, but we still couldn't help but grieve as we saw him reject our outreaches. He had been taught a hard lesson: the only person who has the power to change one's life is oneself. The problem was that he took that lesson too literally.

My husband had once told him that just because he never had certain things in life doesn't mean that he doesn't need them now. My sweet boy had lived a life in which he was always alone, even in a crowd. He had known intimacy in his human life, but he was then deprived of it. He lived over a century without love and compassion, and because he survived, he had the misguided idea that one can truly live without those emotions. He needed love and care; he craved it more than anything. But now that it was offered, he had no idea how to accept it.

Instead, he lived inside an emotional prison, trapped with only his thoughts, and wishing to escape.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter II: Immersion**

***Sorry for the delay. Between moving, applying for jobs, working, being horribly sick, and an emergency root canal, writing was the last thing on my mind. Here's the second chapter of Awake, His Soul. By the way, if this chapter isn't good, I'm going to blame it on the fact that I was/am in excruciating pain while writing a lot of it. That certainly has the capability to lower one's mental capacity.* **

I sat for a little while longer, reflecting on my beautiful, tormented son. I listened to hear where he was, wondering what he was doing at this very moment. Something to distract himself from the awful thoughts that haunted his mind?

I often wished I could read the minds of my children. I thought that maybe if I could hear their thoughts, I could know exactly how to mother them. But my youngest son told me that I would not want to be able to see what went on in my middle son's head. I was told that dark things went on in his mind, so dark that my heart would break from seeing them. I supposed he was right. After all, my heart was breaking just seeing the way he suffered every day. Still, I wanted to know.

I listened once more, zoning in on the sound of his quiet breath coming from upstairs. He was in the library, as usual. He often spent hours reading, immersing himself in unreality just to make reality more bearable. However, I didn't hear the rustle of pages turning. This could only mean one thing—he was in so much pain that even burying himself in a book didn't help.

That happened often. On his bad days, he locked himself in whichever room he happened to be in. He sat alone, silently reliving his pain over and over. As though isolation could help him cure the feeling of always being alone.

I hated it when he locked himself away. The poor thing needed someone, anyone, to help him through. I resolved to try to communicate with him, to try to make a successful attempt at breaking down his walls. If I could reach him, if only just for a moment…

When I turned and faced the inside of the house, I noticed the family photos. I had many of them hanging on the wall, but very few contained him. I wasn't purposely excluding him from the family, and I felt so terrible that I did not display him as much as I did my other children. But he always looked so sad, so tired. I didn't want to hang anything up that would constantly remind everyone of his pain. I also did not want him to have to see himself, for I knew that he avoided mirrors and such because seeing his scars reminded him of the past.

Turning my thoughts back to the task at hand, I opened the glass door and entered the living room. As I climbed the stairs and approached the library at the end of the hall, I heard his breath still. Was it just depression? Or nerves, perhaps? I didn't know. All I knew was that he needed me, whether he knew it or not.

Taking a deep breath and mentally preparing myself, I knocked on the door.

No response came. I knocked again. "Jasper, sweetie?" I asked tentatively, hoping to hear his deep voice in return.

I heard movement from inside the room. "Yes?" he replied, in a soft voice.

"May I please come in?"

He hesitated for a few moments, and then gave me permission to enter.

I went in the room and grabbed a chair. His big eyes tracked me across the room, watching me closely. I set the chair down on the other side of the desk from him. I glanced at the familiar titles on the books that were piled in front of him, and then I lifted my eyes to the face of my son. He looked down immediately, fidgeting uncomfortably. This was not going to be easy.

I figured that starting in with questions about his emotions was probably not a very wise choice. I turned my attention once more to the books in front of him.

"How many of those have you read?" I asked casually.

"All of them," he admitted.

"You're rereading them?"

"Yes, ma'am."

I cringed a little at the use of the word ma'am. I wished that he didn't have to be so formal with me. I was his mother, not a casual acquaintance. I withdrew the pang of sadness I felt, a little too late. He felt it, and recoiled a little. It was so hard for me to contain my emotions. I loved so hard that I couldn't help but share it with others. He knew how much I loved him and he understood that I always had his welfare in mind.

But, it was hard for me to remember that my concern made him feel guilty. I was a bit frustrated that I had made a mistake, and a little at a loss for what to say next.

I examined titles of the books in front of him. _The Two Towers_, _The Great Gatsby_, _Crime and Punishment, _and _The Scarlet Letter _were among those on the top layer. "These aren't the happiest of books," I noted.

"No."

"Then why do you read them over and over?" I probed gently. "I mean, these in particular?"

His brow furrowed in thought, highlighting the scars on his forehead. "Because they're deep."

"And they take you away."

"Yes," he said uncomfortably.

His admission led me to open a door to another line of questioning. However, I paused for a moment as my stomach curled up in a knot of apprehension.

He cocked his head and eyed me curiously, using his gift to make me relax. I thanked him with my eyes, and then asked, "Have you ever thought that there is another way to deal with your feelings? A better way?"

He looked back down at his lap, fidgeting as he thought. His face became contemplative. Several times, he opened his mouth to speak, but he stopped the words from coming out. It was times like these, when he struggled to find the words, when I wanted to be able to pick them from his brain.

After a minute or so of editing his thoughts, he said slowly, "I know what you wish for me to do."

"And?"

"You understand why I haven't." He voiced it as a statement rather than a question.

I looked down at my lap, saying nothing. I knew it was an overreaction, but I somehow felt that his words were designed to push me away. I felt the sharp sting of rejection in my heart.

As soon as he felt my reaction, he relieved me of those emotions. I saw him glance down, and he winced guiltily. "I'm sorry. That's not what I meant—I just…"

His eyes reached out to me, as if he were wishing that I would understand and eliminate the need for him to complete his thought. I wished I could. Instead, I simply sat there with my mouth partially open, wishing that the correct words would somehow come out of it.

He recognized that his sentence was not going to be completed, and he looked down again in silence, wishing for once he could be understood.


	3. Notice

**AUTHOR'S NOTICE**

Okay, kids, here's the thing. I haven't updated this story in a long time because I'm not entirely sure if I like it. I kind of wrote myself into a corner, and am not sure where to go from here.

That said, whether or not I continue depends on if you think that the story is good enough to be worth continuing. If you like it, I will most definitely try my best to write something good for all of you. ^^ Please let me know your opinions—it would be most appreciated.


	4. Notice Part II

**AUTHOR'S NOTICE PART II**

What can I say? It's only been about 24 hours since I posted my "should I continue" chapter, and I've already received an outpouring of messages and reviews saying that I need to keep writing "Awake, His Soul". Holy Hell, I never would've imagined that people like my stuff this much.

I think that, given the number of responses I've gotten, I will have to continue the story. Thank you, everyone, for your patience and your goodwill. It means more than you can imagine.

Onward we go, I suppose. :3


	5. Advantage

**Chapter III: Advantage**

***Hmmm. ~rereads story~ This really is better than I remember. Thank you for being patient with me while I wrestled with continuing the story.***

I, too, looked downward, feeling incompetent. I wondered when mothering became so hard. When it became something that was nerve-wracking guesswork rather than instinct and love.

I guessed that I had it easier than most mothers, though. My children were very self-sufficient, and the only real rule that my husband and I enforced was "be responsible". However, it wasn't always that simple. Some of our children required more upbringing than others.

Jasper, in a way, was the most childlike. He tried to act like he was an adult who had things all figured out for himself, but he didn't. He was almost like an incredibly intelligent yet defiant toddler—requiring attention and worry but being too stubborn and persuasive to let people get their way with him.

I pondered that. How could I possibly parent someone with three different age groups: two, twenty, and over one hundred all at the same time?

I looked back at him, noticing that his sadness had turned into awkwardness and self-consciousness. He was looking at me with a strained facial expression, once more unable to voice what he wanted. But I thought I knew. He was uncomfortable with my presence. In the simplest possible words, he didn't want me there.

I couldn't bear to make him uneasy anymore. I had wondered how to take care of him, but the truth was that it was impossible. Just the act of trying to offer him my comfort was too much—I was at a loss for how to help him, and he no longer understood how to be loved. The harshness of the life he had lived had taken away any chance of that. It killed me to know that no matter what I did, I would not affect him in the way he needed.

Even worse than the pain, though, was the fear. My biggest concern was that if I gave in to what he seemed to want me to do, he'd take it the wrong way. It would cause him to believe that we truly didn't care, or that we saw him as a burden. He'd withdraw further, whether it be internal, or by leaving the family altogether.

I shook my head slightly, almost as an external response to an internal quandary. I couldn't let that happen.

And so I was back at square one.

I went back to thinking more about who I was dealing with. His traits, his vulnerabilities, what his present attitude was telling me…

One thought kept coming back to me. My youngest son told me that in _his _mind, the turmoil was so great that he had no idea what he wanted—even the most basic needs were a mystery to him. There was no clearly defined plan or desire; only a hope for recovery, but not the vaguest idea how to reach it. One moment he thought he needed to be feared, one moment to be ignored, one moment to be chastised as the monster he thought himself to be. He thought these reactions would help him toward his goal.

But they didn't.

If he was lost as he said, wouldn't he be grasping at straws trying to make progress? Grabbing hold of anything that resembled positivity?

At that moment, I realized that his insecurity and confusion were my greatest allies. After all, if he really was as lost as I was told, he may be desperate enough to listen to my guidance. If I told him some of the thoughts that had dwelled in me for so long, and led him to believe that I'd help him, it may stir enough hope to keep him going... right?

I heard his drawl coming out to reach me. It sounded worried, not calm and even like usual. "What's the matter?" he urged.

I took a breath and looked up to the face of my son. I no longer saw self-hate, but concern. I flashed him a smile and he returned it, poking relief at me. Now that things were a little less tense, I had a better starting point to dive in from, and I was grateful to be going in with an advantage.


End file.
